Ghost
by Talk Out Loud
Summary: Remus finds it hard to cope with his loss, especially after coming upon a certain room in Hogwarts that is full of memories and now houses something a bit more mysterious, but all too familiar. RLSB, Post OotP, Pre HBP, Rating on the safe side


**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything. The boys are all JKRs.

In a dimly lit room, a large bird all the colors of fire sways its flowing tail next to an old man who is smiling sadly at the younger man across from him.

"Thank you, Dumbledore," the younger man says as he stands and makes a motion for the door.

"I will see you at the next meeting." Dumbledore looks sadly to the man whose eyes have barely left the tiles of the floor over the course of the past hour. He lifts his head and nods before returning his eyes to the floor. His hand is on the knob of the door as he hears Dumbledore's voice again. "And Remus?" he turns to face the old wizard whose voice has dropped lower. "I really am very sorry." Remus nods a final time and exits Dumbledore's office solemnly.

Remus starts down the halls of his alma mater. He tries to make the sound of the chattering students and the clacking of his own feet drown out the deafening memories of a time when his friends, the Marauders, he, James, Peter… Sirius, ruled Hogwarts.

He realizes the attempt is unsuccessful when he suppresses the urge to snap at a 4th year Hufflepuff girl who greeted him with a smile and a kind, "Hello, Professor Lupin!" and asked him how he was.

'_How am I? How _am _I? He's dead, how do you think I am?!'_ a voice screams in his head before he quietly replies with a simple, "Fine, Miss Hurst." and a kind nod-- there isn't enough energy in his heart to muster up even the faintest of smiles. For the sake of those around him, and his own sanity, he decides he needs to be alone.

'_But where to go?' _he wonders.

He knows he can't go home. He doesn't want to go home. He never wants to go back. He'd been there once since. When paintings on the wall started staring at him, the walls started closing in on him, the empty chair at the kitchen table started mocking him, and the overwhelmingly familiar smell of the life they had together drained what was left of his heart, he fled.

He knows he can't go to the Gryffindor common room. Harry and his friends would be there to bury him in questions and concerns. He couldn't blame them and their choices of comfort. They were trying being strong for him--he was just afraid to show them--himself--he couldn't be as strong as they were.

He thinks maybe the kitchen. Food might calm him down. He decides against it, not wanting to be questioned by the house elves, either. _'Ah, no Mr. Black this evening, eh, Mr. Lupin?_' he just knows they would ask. It wasn't their fault. They didn't know.

'_The shack? Oh, who am I kidding.' _he doesn't even begin to sift through the millions of startled memories that are ready to flood into his mind at a moments notice.

He stops as he recognizes the corridor he is standing in. _'It can't be.'_ He traces the lines of a door that isn't there. His feet lift off the ground, startled, as the door begins to appear.

He knows the room has a certain significance. It would in the heart of any true Marauder. The room was by far one of their favorite locations on their map. He can still remember the crowns gracing the heads of the kings of Gryffindor and the four thrones each a different color and engraved with a different name, 'Moony,' 'Wormtail,' 'Padfoot,' and 'Prongs.' The mounds of chocolate, fire whiskey, various Zonko products, and some of the most comfortable pillows that have ever been produced. Those private nights when he and his friends would ponder life after Hogwarts, the state of Jell-O, how and _why_ gravity worked, and why in bloody hell Snape never washed his hair. He tries to push out the memories of the nights he spent with Sirius there. Talking and laughing and eating and planning and holding and touching and memorizing under a large oak tree as fireworks drowned out the twinkling light coming from the stars splayed across the ceiling. All the stars except for one, that is, especially bright one and the waxing crescent that shone close by it. Those particular memories are far too painful now.

He looks around him, making sure no one is there, and opens the door that has appeared on the blank wall in front of him. He enters the door with his head hung low, unsure and afraid of what exactly he will find in the room.

"Hullo there, Remus."

Remus' eyes grow wide as his head jerks up. There is a man standing before him, looking just as he had the last time Remus saw him. _'No. No, it can't. It can't be. It's impossible.'_

"Sirius…" he says barely above a whisper.

"Hullo there, Remus."

Without thinking, Remus says his lover's name again and runs to him, pulling him into an embrace he has no intentions of ever breaking.

_Thud._

He hits the ground first with his knees and then his elbows, forearms and wrists. His mind scans the pages of every book he's ever read to help him piece together what just happened. His answer is unfound as his thick, unforced tears drip to the floor sounding like bombs dropping in the eerie silence of the room.

"Sirius…" he barely manages with such a trembling voice.

He stands, not giving a thought to the sharp pains on his scraped joints. He turns around and meets a long, familiar mane, cascading over a strong, yet elegant back. He walks around to face Sirius, noting when he does that the image before him is, indeed, three dimensional. He lifts a hand to stroke the black hair in front of him. Feeling nothing, he covers the gasp escaping from his lips as if he has discovered a shocking truth. Again he feels nothing as his hand lands on the pale cheek of his fallen comrade. His eyes close as he begins tracing all the familiar lines of Sirius' face. Pained from the burning tears behind them, his eyelids flutter open again. His eyes stare into the dulled, gray eyes of the vision? Apparition? Mirage…? he doesn't even know what to call it.

"Hullo there, Remus."

Tears continue silently as he wraps his scarred arms around the beautiful and flawless… '_ghost'_ his mind settles on.

After what feels like hours, his hands clutch his own robes as collapses to the floor in a heap and eventually cries himself into nightmares.

_Fin_


End file.
